“People fail, and failing is part of it,” Chandler said. “It’s not
final; it’s the journey. I know that I want to be a world champion,
but I wouldn’t consider it a failure necessarily -- but I would
consider it a bump in a road -- if I don’t win the lightweight
world championship. The platform that I will be put on, whether I
win or not, that is the reason I am in this sport.”

An accomplished amateur wrestler, Chandler was a four-time NCAA
qualifier at the University of Missouri. He has parlayed those
skills into an unbeaten start to his professional MMA career.
However, Alvarez will undoubtedly serve as his stiffest test to
date.

“Eddie Alvarez is a great fighter,” Chandler said. “He’s got great
hands. He puts on a show. He’s elusive, fast [and] strong. He’s a
well-rounded fighter. Nobody in the previous tournament pushed
Eddie. Eddie has basically just been bulldozing people and coming
forward on them, and what he has done in his last couple of fights
is what I envision in my mind: moving when he’s coming forward, not
worrying about who the heck he is, what his name is or what he’s
done.

“At the end of the day,” he added, “Eddie is a 155-pound man and I
am a 155-pound man, and when that cage door closes, we have 25
minutes to figure out what is going to happen.”

Chandler likes the way he matches up with the champion.

“I am continuing to become a better mixed martial artist, but I am
a grinder and a tough wrestler at heart,” he said. “I am not
talking about takedowns or technique. I am talking about the
mentality of always coming forward, always [getting] in your face,
always bringing a fight to you, whether it looks pretty or it
doesn’t; looking for takedowns, looking for punches, looking for
the knockouts, looking for the submissions -- just constant
pressure, taking Eddie to the deep waters and putting him in a
situation that he hasn’t every really been in.”

“I see this as we are all training hard with good training
partners, but I think I have a lot to prove,” he said. “I am young,
and I want people to start talking about me as if I am a threat. I
want people to talk about me when they are talking about the top
guys in the lightweight division around the world.

“Eddie has a lot of experience,” Chandler added. “He came out in
one of his interviews and said I was not really a mixed martial
artist, [that] I’m just a wrestler who is excited about the sport
of MMA, which is his opinion. I haven’t had enough fights yet to
prove that I’m not just a wrestler who is just excited about the
sport of MMA, but I have been eating and sleeping the lifestyle of
this sport. It’s my passion and I’m in this sport for one reason,
and that is to be the world champ. I want to win that belt. I’ve
had a ton of wrestling experience, and, in my opinion, that is the
best experience you could have in the whole world. I’m
prepared.”

Alvarez will not be an easy mountain to climb. The 27-year-old
champion will enter the cage on a string of seven consecutive
victories, the second longest such streak of his career. Still,
Chandler remains ever confident.

“In the fight with Eddie Alvarez, I can’t wait for the moment when
you know the fight is over and you know you won and you have it in
the bag, whether you finish him or whatever; that feeling of relief
and rest,” he said. “It’s going to be a thing of beauty when this
fight is over, to know I got the win and I got the belt around my
waist and I can go put it around my mom’s waist and I can go hang
out with family and cut back and be champion and deserve some time
off.”